A Little Planning Goes a Long Way for Your Dream Smart Home

In life, a little planning goes a long way. Do you plan your vacations? Most people do it for a better result. Even if you love serendipity and spontaneity, planning can eliminate nasty surprises and save lots of time for what you really want to do.

If you’re building or remodeling a home in Chicago, careful planning also eliminates surprises and saves on cost. Typically, these projects are also the best time to consider adding smart home features. For the best results, any smart home technology should be well integrated with your project, including planning with your architect, interior designer, and builder. So what are some key things to know about planning your smart home installation? Keep reading below!

The Future is Here – Why Wait?

Those of a certain age might remember the Jetsons, the cartoon series from the 1960s that depicted a future as imagined in that era. The Jetsons foresaw flying cars, robots, drones, holograms, and video calls. If you think about it, that future – save for flying cars – is mostly here. 

The Jetsons was ideated over 50 years ago, so we can only imagine what’s to come in smart home technology in the next 50 years. While that might be fun, today’s reality is amazingly Jetson-like and worth getting right now. So let’s explore the possibilities for your Hinsdale, IL home – available right here, right now!

Make Your Vacation Home Easier to Manage and Secure

For many in the Chicagoland area, Lake Geneva has been a spring and summer escape for decompressing and getting away. Historically known as the “Newport of the West,” the area's natural beauty and grand summer homes have lured many for decades. While today’s summer homes may not have quite the same splendor of the past, like any second home or vacation property, they require attention and maintenance.

Shouldn’t a vacation home be more fun than work? We think so too, and with smart home automation, you can take some of the stress out of managing your Wisconsin getaway. Keep reading for three ways you can use smart technology to worry less and enjoy more.

You Don’t Hire a Plumber to Do Your Electrical

The words “technology integrator” might seem amorphous to you. You intuitively know other home-related professions and trades, like architects, interior designers, plumbing, electrical, and carpentry. Is a technology integrator a jack of all electronic trades? Is it an elevated title for a company that does low-voltage wiring?

When it comes to Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we can answer both of the questions above with a hesitant “Yes," but technology integration is much more than electronic expertise and installation. So let's explore our vision of what it means to be a technology integrator – and what we can do in your Hinsdale, IL, home.

Elevate your connectivity and enhance every activity at home!

Now more than ever, network connectivity plays a huge role in our everyday lives. We rely on our home networking setup for virtually every activity at home. Whether you want to have a better entertainment experience, enhance the efficiency of your home office, or just keep full control of your smart home, a robust network is a key element to help you enjoy all that. Keep reading below to learn more about how you can elevate your living by incorporating a top-notch home networking system in your Lake Geneva, WI, home.

Got Cabin Fever? Take the Entertainment Outside

Spring in Chicago may not be the warmest in North America, but we can look forward to more temperate days and opportunities to get outside. Plus, it means summer is around the corner! With winter in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to cure cabin fever and get outside.

Getting outside is even easier when all you have to do is step out onto your patio or yard. Want a way to make the most of it? Just add audio and video entertainment! Explore some fun ideas for outdoor entertainment at home below.

Keep Your Lake Geneva Property Safer All Year Round

Is your Lake Geneva property a summer escape or a year-round residence? Either way, you’ll want to keep your Wisconsin home safe while you’re there or away. When you pack up at the end of summer, a modern video surveillance system can help keep an eye on your home from anywhere. Keep reading below to learn about the latest features and options in home video surveillance.

The Great Outdoors Is More Fun with Your Favorite Entertainment

As spring rolls into the Chicagoland area, it's time to shed winter's heavy coats and accouterments and enjoy a little more time outside. And this is the time you might be looking at adding something to make your outdoor areas at home more inviting and entertaining in the warmer months.

Whether you are looking to extend the patio, build a fireplace, add a pool, or renovate the landscape, may we suggest that all of these go better with audio and video entertainment. Bringing music, movies, shows, and other pastimes outdoors will help you make the most of your outdoor investment and spend more time outside. Keep reading below to see how outdoor audio and video add the crowning touch to all the alfresco activities in your Naperville home.

Style and Substance Combine to Perfection with Lutron Keypads

As a design professional, you understand both form and function. Many things in homes need to deliver on everyday functionality and achieve that without sacrificing aesthetics. Lighting is one area where you need to add functional illumination and do it in a welcoming, aesthetically pleasing way.

Let's continue the discussion about lighting but focus on how it's controlled. The lowly light switch is functional, but even adding a dash of color to Decora doesn't make them beautiful. Worse, the many lights in your high-end projects can sometimes result in "wall acne," where there are too many banks of switches in the room. Is there a solution to this unfortunate triumph of function over form? Yes, if you incorporate Lutron lighting control and their elegant keypad controls in your Chicago projects. Keep reading below to learn more about two of Lutron’s most elegant – and smart – keypad lines.

Our New Lighting Demo Space Helps You Visualize The Impact of Lighting Choices and Control

Lighting design is both an art and a science. There are guidelines, rules, and skills that professional lighting designers use to add functional illumination to a space and make it aesthetically pleasing. If you are an interior or lighting designer, architect, or builder, you have an eye and experience in how lighting affects your projects.

Barrett’s Technology Solutions is not a lighting designer, but we do offer lighting installation and control solutions for the Chicago area and Lake Geneva, WI, clients. We aim to partner with design and build professionals to show you what's possible with the latest LED lighting and control solutions. To that end, we are excited to announce our new Lighting Lab – a place you and your clients can visualize and experience some of the latest lighting technology and how you might use that in your projects.

Please continue reading below to learn more about what you can experience in our new Chicago lighting lab!

Build a Dedicated Media Room as an Entertainment and Fun Hub

TVs were once these big, bulky things that demanded their own focal point in a room. Do you remember the large-screen TVs of the mid-2000s? Rear projection 50-inch-and-up models came in huge heavy cabinets that competed with fireplaces in your living or family room. And while those TVs had arguably better speakers than today's flat panels, that didn't include the sound system!

As we all know, times have changed. Today's sleek flat-panel TVs can mount on a wall and go anywhere – even above the fireplace with no room-focal redesign needed! And the soundbar didn't exist years ago, which offers a sleeker, slimmer approach to better sound from the TV. But if you have such a setup in your family or living room, does that make it your media room? If that’s what you want to call it, we won’t argue with you. But we will suggest that a media room installation is more than a TV and a soundbar.

Read on below to see how you can create a media entertainment hub in your family room, basement rec room, or whatever space you choose in your Chicago, IL home.

Chicago’s Leading Home Automation Company Has a Fresh, New Web Presence

Remember the Yellow Pages? The directory was once an all-important presence for local businesses to be found. If you needed a plumber, heating system repair, or just about anything else, the Yellow Pages was the place to look. And if you remember them, you know how many local businesses called themselves AAA plumbing or ABC Auto Repair to be listed at the beginning of them, with flashy full-page ads.

That world, of course, has changed. Today, an internet presence in the form of a website is a critical marketing card for any company. On the internet, you'll never be found by changing your name to AAAA Home Technology. Instead, you will be recognized by the quality of the content you put on your website and by continually updating it with fresh, useful information that helps people decide to contact you for your services.

In that vein, that’s why Barrett’s Technology Solutions – one of Chicago's premier home automation companies – has totally revamped our website. While our old website was extensive, the new design, layout, and richer graphics enable us to tell our story better. And with this change, we’ve also updated our web domain name – we are now Barretts.tech. The new URL, changing from Barretts.tv, better reflects our focus on all things home technology. 

Keep reading below to learn more about our new website. Please check it out, peruse our new look, and reach out with any questions!

Learn about Client and Designer Approved Tricks to Hide AV Tech for Seamless Décor

Let's face it, much of today's electronics are not aesthetically pleasing. Whether we are talking about giant flat-panel TVs that can stretch to 100 inches or most audio components that are a sea of black metal, most of today's equipment lacks design flair. Some speakers, like Meridian Audio models, make a statement in a room. But others take up space that both you and your designer would prefer not to design around.

If your Lake Geneva, WI home is on the cutting edge of style – whether modern, transitional, or mid-century – you do have options for hiding the AV installation in your home. In this blog, we’ll cover four ways of blending the best technology into your home in a way that will leave you and your interior designer smiling at your ingenuity and taste. Stay with us below!

You’re Likely to Get More Smart Connected Devices this Holiday Season

Did you shop online this past Black Friday? Or did you brave the crowds at the store to get those early bird deals? Whatever your preferences, it’s highly likely that some smart connected device is on the holiday shopping list, Black Friday or otherwise.

Have you ever thought about your home network's ability to handle all those devices? Most people don't. Your child gets a new iPad, and it gets added to the network. A new Amazon Echo or Sonos speaker, and it also connects. How about a new refrigerator? Many of the latest ones also get connected to Wi-Fi to keep you informed about malfunctions and maintenance.

If you stream video, like so many people, the strain on your network multiplies. You might not think about it, but your kids may be streaming 4K videos on that shiny new iPad they just got for Christmas, all day long. Is your network ready for all that? If you’re still relying on the home network installation from your ISP when you moved into your Lake Geneva, WI home, it may not be ready for the next wave of connections you just added!

Keep reading below to see how you can invest in a home network system that can keep up with your needs now and into the future.

Discover All the Powered Window Treatment Options for Your Home 

Powered window treatments are an increasingly popular option for today’s smart homes. Once you have them, you never want to go back to manual ones. It's like power steering in cars – when was the last time you drove one with manual steering? Some things just make a lot of sense. With motorized window treatments, you have so many more options for managing the light in your home. 

You might hear the term motorized shades used with powered window treatments, and that’s because the roller shade type is the most common one. However, you might be surprised to learn that there is a powered window treatment for almost any kind of window! Keep reading below to learn about eight – yes, eight – types of motorized window treatments for your Chicago home. 

How Home Automation Lets You Worry Less and Enjoy More

With Halloween just behind us, we’re now barreling headlong into the holiday season in Hinsdale. With it, the Illinois fall is also in full swing, and winter – well, it does come early here! But you can be ready for the holidays with a little help from a Savant home automation system. Savant's smart home features can take care of little things, give you peace of mind, and make holiday entertaining just a little easier.

There's a lot to do for the holidays. Whether it's ordering gifts, getting the house decorated, keeping the holiday lights working, or ensuring all the meals and parties are affairs to remember. As always, you’ll be busy! Let a Savant home automation systems take a bit of the load. Here are four of our favorite ways you can enjoy the holidays more with home automation.

Music You Can Enjoy with Any Activity Around the House 

What should you listen to on your whole home audio system? Far be it for us to tell you, it will all sound fantastic whether you go with a Meridian audio system, Savant, or something else. Not only will all your favorite tunes sound great, but you’ll enjoy the effortless ease of calling them up with your smartphone, a touchscreen, a voice command, or a press on a wall-mounted keypad. 

That said, we can’t resist recommending a few tracks that lend themselves well to playing on every speaker in the house as you meander through your daily routine. Whether it’s a background soundtrack to your work-from-home day, doing chores, exercising, or soaking up the last of the good Illinois fall weather on your Chicago townhouse patio, you’ll enjoy how these songs stick with you wherever you roam.  

Ready? Here are five tunes to enjoy in every corner of your home with multiroom audio. 

Bring in a Pro Early for the Best Results

Today’s AV entertainment systems can get complicated. If you’re an interior designer, architect, or builder, it’s wise to bring in an audio-video installation pro early in your projects to incorporate the latest systems your clients want.

You might think, don't all we have to do is plan for some low-voltage wiring? While low-voltage infrastructure is indeed important, there's more to achieving a well-sorted and integrated AV installation that incorporates what clients want, fits in with your mutual design vision, and doesn’t require a stack of change orders because of lack of planning. Let’s explore how you can enhance your Chicago, IL projects with a little help from your AV professional – like Barrett’s Technology Solutions!

You May Never Want to Go Out to the Movies Again

Are you looking to revamp your home theater design? Many Illinois homes have had dedicated theater rooms for years now, but how long has it been since you upgraded yours? In the past several years, many new features have added new dimensions to home theaters – 4K/HDR projectors for sharper pictures with significantly enhanced contrast and color, Dolby Atmos audio for a realistic “in the scene” experience, and a plethora of streaming video services with more content than ever before.

If you're already enjoying some of these upgrades, perhaps there's one you don't know about. It adds convenience, the highest quality audio, and video experience, and maybe best of all, eliminates just about any reason to ever go out to the movies again. What is it? It's the Kaleidescape system, the ultimate movie player for your Chicago home theater. Read more below to learn how Kaleidescape is like having your very own movie theater.

Create a Multipurpose Indoor Fun Zone in Your Theater or Media Room 

Virtual is a word that’s currently in vogue. In the past year, you’ve probably become tired of virtual meetings over Zoom, virtual work, virtual school, and virtual happy hours. Can we talk about something real?

Well, not in this blog. But we promise we have something virtual that’s absolutely more fun and far more realistic than a virtual happy hour. And unlike happy hour, your kids can enjoy it as well. What are we talking about? Home golf simulators. You don't have to be a golf fanatic to enjoy one, as these systems do more games than golf! As the weather in Illinois and Wisconsin turns chillier soon, a golf simulator is an excellent way to keep your game going and enjoy immersive entertainment indoors with your family in your Chicago home or your Lake Geneva retreat. Read on to learn more about how golf simulators add a new dimension of fun to your home theater or media room.